


Put Her Love Down

by Rueitae



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Poker, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 11:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18690952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rueitae/pseuds/Rueitae
Summary: Pidge plays a game of poker with Lance, Keith, and Allura with more than one goal in mind.





	Put Her Love Down

**Author's Note:**

> A title prompt. Written very quickly on the phone! Unedited! If you fancy the idea and would like to run with it, let me know so I can read it!

Pidge adjusted her hat, the wide brim helping to conceal both her cards and face from the others at her the table. She clicked the inside of her cheek for good measure, feeling more than hearing it in this loud saloon.

She glanced above her hand across the table. On her left, Deputy Keith, grinding his teeth and scowling, clearly had not been dealt a good hand. To her left, the owner of the saloon herself, Allura frustratingly had the same overtly serious face as the last ten hands, borderline making her look ridiculous, eyeing her opponents with suspicion.

And directly across from her, Pidge’s real target. Lance was in town from the cattle drive that Pidge hoped to get in on if she played her cards right.

He, like Allura, played a humorously suspicious look, raising a brow.

He smirked her way, sending flashes of more peaceful times in her mind: long strolls on the beach, training together for the cow wrangling contests - the brief pause at the window of the jewelers, before the war tore it all apart, sending him, and her father and brother, out further west and her struggling to find a way to follow.

“What’ll it be, Pidge? Gonna raise or fold?” Lance said with swagger, leaning forward with an elbow on the table, making her heart beat just as rapidly as in days long past.

Does Allura have a good hand? Pidge bit her lip. Even if she does, she was the understanding sort. Pidge could make her move.

She returned Lance’s smirk with a grin of her own. His face faltered, to her pleasure.

“I raise,” she said… and tossed a piece of green paper in the center of the table.

Allura nearly dropped her cards in the first genuine fit of surprise that night. “Pidge, this is only a friendly game, you don’t have to — “

“I want to,” she said, not taking her eyes off a stunned Lance, his mouth gaping like a fish.

“I bet my horse, _and,”_ she stressed, “my services on the next leg of your cattle drive.”

The saloon went silent.

“Are you sure?” Keith asked in concern. Pidge doesn’t look his way.

“I’m sure,” she insisted.

Lance came out of his shock and settled back into his seat. “There are easier ways to get work, you know.”

“I have people to find,” Pidge said. “This is the best way to do that.” _And I’ll have found_ you _. “_ Why did you take the job?”

Lance looked at her, really looked. “I have people to get home to,” he said softly. For the first time since they’ve met in this town, she held her breath that he’d finally recognize her - so she wouldn’t have to figure out a way to reveal herself away from prying eyes.

He laid his cards face up. “Straight flush,” he said, the first win of his tonight he doesn’t smile.

Pidge shrugged. “Three of a kind.” She’d lost, and she should be upset, but she couldn’t stop from smiling.

Lance slumped over the table, scratching his head, his wavy brown hair moving around tantalizingly. Pidge hoped that he hadn’t changed too much that soon he’d let her run a hand through his hair again.

“Well, I guess we ride at sunrise,” he told her. “It’s a long way to Laramie. I hope you packed light.”

“I’ll be ready. I just hope your reputation for terrible flirting gets you to bed early so you’ll be ready,” Pidge grinned. Plenty of time to catch up, and last she heard of her father, he was in Cheyenne.

Allura laughed, barely covering her mouth out of her own sense of politeness. Keith wasn’t so kind.

“Pidge knows you better after one night than I have in months. You sure you two have never met?” he jabbed.

Lance grumbled, leaning back into his seat and crossing his arms in a pout. “Why does it feel like I’ve lost even though I _won_?”

A warm feeling settled in her chest, he hadn’t changed a bit. For the first time since leaving home, she felt putting her heart down on this gamble of a journey was worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](https://rueitae.tumblr.com/)


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